Canon announce EOS 5D Mark III

Canon have officially announced the new EOS 5D Mark III SLR camera which sports a massive 22.3 megapixel full frame CMOS sensor and DIGIC 5+ Image processor. The 5D MKIII features a 61 point High Density Renticular Autofocus with up to 6 fps shooting speed.

Additionally the camera has support for true 1080P high definition video with 24p, 25p and 30p frame rate support. It also can record at 720p at 60p. It features H.264 compression and a headphone port to monitor the audio.

As well as the new super high resolution sensor, the camera has lower noise with higher sensitivity due to the gapless microlens design and eight channel readout. One of the main talking points will be the 61 point AF which has been taken from the flagship EOS-1D X and all points can be manually selected. Six AF modes are supported – Single Point, Spot, Single point with surrounding four points, Single Point with surrounding eight point, Zone selection and Automatic AF point selection.

The camera’s twenty one focusing points in the central area are also standard precision cross-type and effective with maximum apertures larger than or equal to f/5.6. The center five points are ultra-high-precision diagonal cross-type points for maximum apertures larger than or equal to f/2.8. The 20 outer focusing points function as high-precision cross-type points with maximum apertures larger than or equal to f/4.0″ Canon.

The camera supports ISO from 100 to 25,600 although there are extended settings which offer ISO 50 and 51,200 and 102,400 options if you are willing to live with reduced contrast or high noise levels in the images. Canon say that the DIGIC 5+ processor is up to 17x faster than the previous version and Canon are able to introduce in camera HDR and Multiple exposure modes. UDMA 7 Compact Flash Cards are now supported.

For faster shooting, the 5D MKIII supports smaller files – M-RAW @ 10.5 MP and S-RAW @ 5.5 MP for smaller and faster files.

As would be expected, the camera has a full magnesium alloy body and a stainless steel lens mount and it is dust and moisture resistant. Shutter release speeds are dropped to only 59 milliseconds.

A 3.2 inch Clare View II LCD is included with 1,040,000 dot resolution and Canon claim 100 percent coverage with the optical viewfinder.

The price hasn't been announced in the UK yet, but US pricing is set at $3,499 for the body only. They will also be offering a lens kit version with EF 24-105mm F4/L IS USM at $4,299.

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